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Date:      Thu, 3 May 2001 13:57:19 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        User Ipt Ian Patrick Thomas <ipthomas_77@yahoo.com>
Cc:        freebsd-small@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: IBM Laptop 4MB RAM 486 CPU
Message-ID:  <20010503135719.U72846@wantadilla.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <200105030422.AAA01174@scarlet.my.domain>; from ipthomas_77@yahoo.com on Thu, May 03, 2001 at 12:22:54AM -0400
References:  <200105030422.AAA01174@scarlet.my.domain>

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On Thursday,  3 May 2001 at  0:22:54 -0400, User Ipt Ian Patrick Thomas wrote:
> Operating System: FreeBSD
> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)]
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> 	I have an old IBM thinkpad with about 4MB of RAM(actually it says 3096KB
> on bootup) with a 486 CPU that I would like to use with PicoBSD.  It has two
> serial ports and a monitor port with a floppy drive and a HardDrive with
> about 120 MB.  Unfortunately there is no PCMCIA slots for a NIC.  I have come
> close to getting NetBSD on this laptop but have failed right at the end.  I
> figured that I should try a BSD that is made for small spaces.  The FAQ
> suggests 8MB but claims 4MB has been done.  I figure if I can get a swap
> space on their early in the install I should be set because the HD is plenty
> big enough.  I have had a version of Linux(small linux I think) on this
> laptop and it worked, but I would rather have a BSD(I'm more comfortable with
> it).  I this even possible or should I go and find another 4MB of RAM(this
> thing maxes out at 8MB and the RAM is very hard to find)?

You're probably out of luck.  PicoBSD certainly won't work; it stores
data in a RAMdisk which is by default 4 MB.  That's in addition to
normal system memory, so you don't have a hope there.

Current versions of FreeBSD may or may not run in 8 MB; they certainly
won't run in 4.  Your best bet is to get an old version (for example
2.2.8, the last FreeBSD-2 version).  This should function in 4 MB, but
don't expect a ball of fire.

Greg
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